If you are a fan of personal development, you have certainly already heard of Ho'Oponopono... If you don't know, we're here to tell you all about this Hawaiian philosophy that promises to make us gain cognitive agility , empathy and optimism.

A traditional custom theorized by a cultural smuggler

The first writings on Ho'Oponopono date back to Mary Kawena Pukui's 1957 book, The Polynesian Family System in Ka'U. This 250-page monograph will reveal to the United States, which is on the way to making Hawaii the 50th state of the confederation, the major aspects of the culture of a people who came from Polynesia at the very beginning of our era. 

Everything is detailed : the structures of the habitat, the relationship with nature, the relations between communities and individuals, the systems of union and family organizations, the principles of social regulation and justice, music and dance, spirituality and customs... Among the latter, the Ho'Oponopono, an ancestral tradition of which the author, who devotes her life to the promotion of Hawaiian culture, intends to be the transmitter.

Before taking up a full chapter, the term Ho'Oponopono appears in the section of the work devoted to spiritual relations with ancestors, the dead and the divine ; in the one that talks about the healing of diseases and in the one where we talk about the regulation of conflicts. Thus, it can be said that Ho'Oponopono is at the same time an act of spiritual intercession, a medicine of the body and soul and a form of collective therapy.

A mantra to " restore balance "

Translating the term Ho'Oponopono is no easy feat. As close as possible to the literal, some say " start to act" (Ho'o) " to do the right thing" (ponopono). This " doing the right thing" has various meanings : " harmonizing ", " putting things in order ", " rearranging ", " doing justice ", " being honest ", " purifying ", " acting correctly ", " straightening out "... The contemporary synthesis of so many connotations agrees on the idea of " restoring balance ".

Ho'Oponopono is indeed called upon when pain, misunderstanding, hazard, degradation, upheaval destabilize the individual and the collective. So, we have to invest in the mantra " I'm sorry. Sorry. Thank you. I love you." In other words, to recognize one's mistakes, to ask for absolution, to express one's gratitude, to show one's attachment.

This is reminiscent of the " mechanics of giving " theorized by the anthropologist Marcel Mauss , for whom the social bond is based on the ability to ask-give-receive-return.

Alternative medicine?

Cascading benefits

Numerous studies have highlighted the physical and mental health benefits of the components of the Ho'Oponopono mantra: recognizing one's mistakes promotes the production of serotonin (antidepressant neurotransmitter) and has a positive effect on the cognitive abilities involved in decision-making and forgiveness that we give like the one we receive lowers blood pressure and slows down the heart rate; Gratitude  has effects on reducing stress and increasing the quality of sleep...

 As for love, it's the combo: it intervenes in the prevention of heart disease, helps preserve the lungs, regulates anxiety, acts against pain, accelerates healing, stimulates the areas of the brain involved in creativity, and so on...

An infusion of Ho'Oponopono flavored with alternative medicine

So many benefits announced, it does not leave indifferent those who are interested in alternative medicine to Western allopathy. In the 1970s, the shaman Morrnah Simeona set out to transform traditional custom into therapy.

To do this, she infuses Ho'Oponopono with contributions from Indian and Chinese healing techniques, with a touch of Calvinist mysticism and a zest of European psychology.

A clinical psychologist from Hawaii, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len takes Simeona's approach. Sent to a penitician, he decides not to consult with the prisoners. Instead, he puts down their files, wanders around the corridors for a while and indulges in some kind of prayer.

A few weeks later, everyone is better in the prison. But what did he do for this ? According to him, he " cleaned and put in order the memories " of the detainees by reciting the Ho'Oponopono mantra for each of them : " Sorry, Sorry, Thank you, I love you."

To be able to act on the world...

Shrink Len affirms that our mind is a divine good and a common good. This means that we do not own it, but we are responsible for it. In other words, when someone is in trouble, it is everyone's  business: because the pain and negative impulses that invade memories are collective, we are all invested with the duty to relieve them and we therefore have the power to repair buried wounds.

This power to act extends to things that we ourselves have not damaged, those that are far from us, those that do not concern us directly. According to Joe Vitale, co-author with Dr. Len of several books on Ho'oponopono, " Terrorist activities, the president, the economy — whatever you experience and you don't like — it's up to you to heal them. They exist, so to speak, only as projections from within you. The problem is not theirs, it is yours and to change them, you have to change yourself. If you want to improve your life, you need to heal your life. If you want to heal someone—even a mentally ill criminal—you will do it by healing yourself.  »

Criticisms of Ho'Oponopono

Vigilance in the face of paramedical beliefs

Like any self-healing process with strong spiritual connotations, Ho'Oponopono attracts the attention of the authorities monitoring sectarian excesses. But there is nothing dramatic to report on this side at the moment : neither a megalomaniac-authoritarian guru gathering a community of followers, nor financial capture orchestrated in complete illegality.

On the other hand, the method is questioned for the distance between its promise to help change the world and its actual observed effects. Likely to maintain magical thinking, it could contribute to a collapse of critical thinking, or even a form of passivity in the face of risks and aggressions.

Is a Western-style Ho'Oponopono possible ?

The criticism also concerns the use of a tradition integrated into an entire system of spirituality when it is applied in a fundamentally different context. In other words, Ho'Oponopono takes on its full dimension in Polynesian and Hawaiian culture, but its synthesis applied to the Western way of life would be reductive, at the risk of falling into cultural appropriation.

As for the comparison that some people make between Ho'Oponopono and quantum physics in an attempt to rationalize the phenomena of energy transmissions at work in positive actions, caution is still required.

Ho'Oponopono as a conscious method of relational ecology

If the transfer of the Ho'Oponopono method in personal development cannot fully account for its scope, the contributions of this tradition show virtues in the field of education, care for mental disorders and relational suffering, the development of soft-skills, work on oneself in order to gain serenity and to find meaning and more generally, in the strengthening of relational ecology.

The collective of caregivers extending the work of the pedagogue Laurence Pernoud recommends the Hawaiian method to teach forgiveness to children. As a profoundly interior process, the forgiveness that we ask for, like the forgiveness that we grant, is not necessarily easy for the little ones, who are asked to renounce omnipotence in order to enter into the acceptance that things are what they are.

In the accompaniment of people suffering from mental disorders, we can call on the contributions of Ho'Oponopono to reduce feelings of frustration. By creating a kind of bubble of emotional security, the mantra would help the individual to refocus on his feelings and to regain possession of his ability to manage his emotions.

And for all of us, Ho'Oponopono is one way to access as many soft skills as empathy, emotional intelligence, humility, flexibility, benevolence, resilience, optimism...